This invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method and a recording medium and, more particularly, to an image processing apparatus and method which correct image data, and a recording medium.
Conventionally, an image read with a color device (digital camera or scanner) without using any color management system (CMS) tends to be an image poor in quality because the contrast is weak or saturation is low because of, e.g., inappropriate gamma adjustment. When such a poor-quality image is directly printed, only a printout with a considerably degraded image quality is obtained.
To solve this problem, before an input poor-quality image is printed, image data already stored in a storage device or the like is accessed and analyzed to obtain the feature of the image. When the image data is appropriately corrected in accordance with the feature of the image, the quality of the output image can be improved.
In the conventional correction method, however, correction parameters must be determined on the basis of the feature of the image obtained by image analysis, and the image must be corrected on the basis of the correction parameters. Hence, the speed of processing required for image output is largely reduced. Especially, when the resolution of image data becomes high to increase the data amount, the processing speed is extremely reduced.
To prevent the processing speed from decreasing due to an increase in data amount, data may be thinned. Although the processing speed can be increased with this method, the processing resolution becomes low, and appropriate correction processing cannot be performed, resulting in degradation in quality of the output image.